Spanish hospital pioneers new lung transplant approach

A Spanish hospital has carried out a lung transplant using a pioneering technique with a robot and a new access route that no longer requires cutting
through bone, experts said on Monday.
Surgeons at Vall d’Hebron hospital in Barcelona used a four-armed robot dubbed “Da Vinci” to cut a small section of the patient’s skin, fat and muscle to remove the damaged lung and insert a new one through an eight-centimetre (three-inch) incision below the sternum, just above the diaphragm.
Older approaches required a 30-centimetre incision. Although some hospitals are already using smaller incisions for lung transplants, this was the first time surgeons were able to confine the incision to soft tissues.
The new procedure is less painful for the patient, they said, as the wound closes easily.
“We believe it is a technique that will improve patients’ life quality, the post-surgery period and reduce pain. We hope this technique will eventually spread to more centres,” Albert Jauregui, head of the Thoracic Surgery and Lung Transplants Department at Vall d’Hebron, told reporters on Monday.